Celebrating Our Families | 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday, September 20, we welcome the families of our seminarians to join us for “Family Day” at Saint John’s Seminary. Mothers and fathers, siblings, and grandparents will fill the Chapel for Mass and afterwards the refectory for lunch. We give thanks for and celebrate the families of the young men who have come here to discern and follow God’s call.

The seminarians who are here to discern a call to the priesthood owe a great debt to their families. A story from the life of Pope St. Pius X illustrates the importance of a priest’s family in his vocation journey. Years before he was elected as pope, he was appointed as bishop of Mantua. The future pope traveled to his hometown to visit his mother. She embraced him and kissed his episcopal ring with joy, but then she pointed to her wedding ring and said, “without this ring, you would not have your fine ring.”

It is certainly fitting for the Seminary to celebrate the families of our students, since most of them first heard a call to follow the Lord while growing up in their family homes. And, although a few of the men heard the call in college or elsewhere, nevertheless the family is critical to every priest’s calling. The family home is “the first school of Christian life and a ‘school for human enrichment’ … where one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one’s life.” (Catechism #1637)

The Seminary is focused on preparing men for the priesthood, and yet we honor and celebrate all vocations in the Church, including marriage and the family that comes from the union of husband and wife. In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells a parable about a wealthy landowner who goes out in search of workers for his vineyard throughout the day. We can see this parable as symbolic of how God calls people in every time, place, and situation of life. Everyone who has been baptized into Christ is called to follow Him. The vocation to marriage that some men and women receive is crucial for the life of the Church.

“You too go into my vineyard,” says the landowner in Jesus’ parable. Each of us who have been baptized have been called (vocation) and have a mission (apostolate). It is not just priests and religious who have a vocation in the Church; all have been called by their baptism to follow the Lord. To continue the image of the vineyard: Each of us are called to cultivate our little corner of the Lord’s vineyard, wherever He has placed us, and to bear good fruit for Him.

Parents and children in a family bear good fruit for the Lord through their daily prayer, and through the little sacrifices they make each day in the family home. The example of parents, as they sacrifice for their children, offers to the seminarians a model to imitate as they prepare, God willing, for a life of spiritual fatherhood as priests.

May God bless the families of our seminarians, and may He reward them for all their daily sacrifices they have made and continue to make for each other and for the Church. May their homes be always filled with love, joy, and hope.